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The RCMP will meet Friday with authors of a damning new report that accuses some police officers of harshly mistreating native women and girls in northern B.C.

“There are some very serious allegations, clearly, brought forth in that report,” Chief Superintendent Janice Armstrong told reporters at a news conference Wednesday.

“That’s going to be part of the discussion that I’ll have with them on Friday: We need to get to the bottom of those allegations.”

The report by Human Rights Watch, a respected New York-based watchdog, contains unproven allegations by several northern B.C. women and girls who say they were abused physically or sexually by police.

The lengthy report does not name the accusers, saying they fear retribution from police if identified.

Armstrong said Human Rights Watch posed questions to the RCMP five months ago about their research, but she insisted police can’t investigate the accusations if they don’t have names of the women or the officers.

“It is impossible to deal with such public and serious complaints when we have no method to determine who the victims or the accused are,” Armstrong said, adding that complaints can be made against police without fear of retribution.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and B.C. Justice Minister Shirley Bond also called on Human Rights Watch to share more information with police about the allegations of abuse.

But the women and girls who allegedly suffered abuse at the hands of RCMP officers don’t trust the justice system enough to reveal their names, said Asia Czapska of the Vancouver-based group Justice for Girls.

“Women and girls very much fear coming forward with this information,” said Czapska, whose group works with impoverished young women in B.C.

Justice for Girls was the catalyst for this report. It asked Human Rights Watch in 2011 to investigate long-standing concerns about degrading police treatment of aboriginal girls in the north.

“Every Canadian should be outraged by this report ... None of this abuse should be happening,” Czapska said. “The police are stating at this point that they are taking this report seriously, and we hope that that will be seen in their actions.”

Czapska will attend Friday’s meeting with the RCMP, and hopes police brass will commit to implementing some of the recommendations in the report.

The main recommendation is for the federal and B.C. governments to participate in a national commission of inquiry into alleged abuse of aboriginal girls and women by some members of the RCMP.

That recommendation was backed Wednesday by Assembly of First Nations Chief Shawn Atleo, who said an inquiry is necessary to understand “how we got to where we are today, and how we move forward to address root causes and better ensure safety and protection of all of our loved ones.”

For now, the federal government has asked the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP to look into the allegations in the report.

Bond, whose riding is in Prince George, said she is “deeply concerned if there are allegations of this nature against RCMP officers in northern British Columbia.” But she stressed Human Rights Watch researchers must share names with an independent third party so the cases can be investigated properly by police.

Mavis Erickson, a Prince George lawyer and women’s rights advocate, assisted Human Rights Watch researchers by liaising with victims in the north. She understands why the women are afraid to reveal their names, but hopes something will compel them to come forward in the future — just as residential school survivors eventually spoke publicly about the abuse they endured.

“I’m not sure what it will take for First Nations women to come forward and feel confident to do that,” said Erickson, who has worked with the Highway of Tears victims’ families.

“There is always the hope that the flood gates will open, because I’m certain there are a lot of women out there who haven’t come forward out of fear.”

The report found the RCMP is failing to protect native women and girls in Northern B.C., including in the infamous Highway of Tears case, in which 18 women and girls have disappeared or been murdered along three Northern B.C. highways.

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